John Terry trial: ‘I’ve been called a lot of things but being racist is not one’

John Terry is not, by his own admission, “a world superstar”. But, as he spoke
in an effort to clear his name of allegations that he racially abused Anton
Ferdinand on a pitch, he did talk of his impression that he was a pillar of
the football community.

Day two: John Terry arrives at court to give evidencePhoto: GETTY IMAGES

When the ‘superstar’ suggestion was put to him, Terry preferred a more modest description, telling prosecutor Duncan Penny that he was “quite famous”.

Penny later said: “You are respected in the football community, aren’t you?” To which Terry responded: “I’d like to think so.”

This perception was what prompted Terry to issue a statement shortly after Chelsea's 1-0 defeat to Queen's Park Rangers at Loftus Road last September, denying any racist connotation to his words after television viewers saw him use the phrase “black c---” to Anton Ferdinand.

Terry denies this was racial abuse; rather, he has consistently claimed he used the words in repetition of what Ferdinand had first said to him. The allegations were initially under investigation by the football authorities. But one member of the two-million-average television audience – an off-duty police officer, it emerged in court on Tuesday – raised a complaint to police, taking the matter out of the hands of the Football Association and into those of the judiciary.

Nevertheless, an interview conducted by Jenny Kennedy, one of the FA’s compliance officers, did feature heavily on day two of the proceedings at Westminster Magistrates’ Court.

In the interview the Chelsea captain explained his hot reaction to Ferdinand’s claims that Terry had been guilty of racism. “I take quite strong offence to it,” he said. “I have been called a lot of things in my career but being a racist is not one I’m prepared to take at all.

“I’m not having anyone, and let alone Anton, thinking that of me because that’s not what I’m like at all. I think you can understand I was quite taken aback by that. I did not take it lightly.

“This is why I sent my statement out straight away because me as a footballer I have nothing to hide. With the cameras and the angles and all that and the fans. I felt really angry and cross about him questioning me as being a racist.”

The FA interview was one of many illuminating aspects of the day’s proceedings, which gave a snapshot of the workings of the association’s much-criticised disciplinary machine. Kennedy taped her interview and it was conducted as if it were one between police officer and criminal suspect.

Kennedy asked how well Terry knew the QPR player and whether he had his number in his phone. He did not. She then focused on the exchange between Terry and Ferdinand in an effort to establish whether the QPR defender had truly said the offensive words first.

She asked: “Do you think how you handled that was the best way of handling someone saying that to you?”

Terry replied: “I think that’s a tough question because, like I say, no one’s ever said that to me before. It’s something I don’t like at all.

“If I had something to hide I wouldn’t be rejecting it in front of all the Sky cameras and the fans knowing that everyone’s watching it. I’m repeating what I think he said to me and that’s it really.”

Kennedy concluded: “I think the man in the street would say it’s not the most sensible thing to repeat the insult back if someone is accusing you of saying an insult.”